Notes on the First Rehearsal

Notes on the First Rehearsal
by Janet S. Tiger)
(Lights up on an empty theater…except for the last person sitting there….me)

Sitting in a theater after everything is finished -an audition – a show – a rehearsal – it has a quiet but happy feeling.

I have been in many theaters after many shows and auditions and rehearsals and …I like it.

The past is a dictator – it dictates the future. I am in high school. I go to a test and I have a cold and not enough kleenexes and they will not give me a Kleenex or let me go to the bathroom to get a towel, so I drip through the whole test…..and so, I am always in fear of not having enough kleenexes and thus I carry kleenexes.

In my pockets, in my purse, in every bag and car I have and ever had. I make sure that I am never further (farther?) than a few feet from kleenexes.

My first play was 4 hours long in its first reading. So every play since then I worry about every word. I make sure that my specialty is monologues and short plays.

How quickly can I get the job done? 20 minutes? Faster! 15 minutes ..10 minutes….5 minutes one minute!….. 30 seconds……

Each rehearsal is a challenge to listen because my words seems so long in the rehearsals. And then something happens….. things start to gel and I hear the way it sounds in my head. An actor understands and they say it just the way the character said it to me. And sometimes an even greater miracle happens – the actor takes what I have written and transcends into another level and I see into the soul of my character – beyond where I have ever seen or felt before.

Caregivers Anonymous is coming to life little by little… it grows, it changes, it becomes alive. The rehearsal today shows me what the final production can be just the way a shadow gives you the idea of the animal or building you are about to see.

In the shadow is a form of possible greatness – or just an average cat walking by or an ordinary house. And yet sometimes the shadow gives you a sensation of chills – maybe you are about to see an incredible beast or an amazing building!

What is the reality? What is the future? What is around the corner casting….The Shadow? Such is the joy of life – the knowledge that the discovery is coming soon.

(Turns to leave, stops, looks back)

And in the theater, that sensation is what keeps us in our seats….and sometimes, on the edge of them.